The Two Faces of January is an old school thriller oozing with style and class, headlined by a trio of great thesps on top of their game.

It also marks the directorial debut of Hossein Amini, an Oscar nominated screenwriter whose most popular work (thus far) is as screenwriter on pop-culture phenom Drive.

For 15 years Amini has tried to get this adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1964 novel in front of the camera, and it’s easy to see why: a tight, stylish, romantic thriller with strong characters and driving plot, The Two Faces of January is the perfect remedy for those who live on a steady diet of Hitchcock and Wilder noir’s, the perfect shot of class during our increasingly classless times.

Based in 1960s Greece, The Two Faces… plants its gaze on American couple Chester and Colette MacFarland (Viggo Mortensen and Kirsten Dunst) who are in hiding after Chester embezzled funds from the wrong people through his stock brokerage. The pair becomes a trio when they meet tour guide Rydal (Oscar Isaac) whose fascination with their glamorous lifestyle has him sucked into their world of treachery, jealousy and murder.

Amini evokes wonderful interplay between his three leads, all of whom are easy on the eye thanks especially to the great costumes by Steven Noble. Cinematographer Marcel Zyskind also does a brilliant job in capturing the period fell of 1960s Europe, as re-created by supervising art director Patrick Rolfe and his team, who took to the on location shoot and worked their magic to make for a transformative viewing experience.

The exotic look and feel enhances the performances from these great actors, who get into the psychological and sensual grit between these three characters who become intertwined in to a jumble of suspicion and paranoia, with no way of becoming undone.

Mortensen lends his solid presence to his most conservative (yet never the less engrossing) role to date, and Dunst perfectly walks that fine line between angelic purity and blonde lustful want.

Yet it’s Oscar Isaac who stands out the most as the lothario hustler struggling to find his place in a world that’s crashing down on him at an accelerating rate, projecting a sex appeal and cunning intelligence that masks a fragile state. Ironically, if The Two Days of January were made 15 years ago, Mortensen would have been perfect for the part, a fact that all the more strengthens the oedipal relationship between their characters.

Amini compiles it all in an easily digestible package, that’s charming in its old school early 1960s style, yet with enough identity that it doesn’t slide into nostalgic novelty, an old school psychological thriller for modern times.